


come down to the water

by caprelloidea



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Beach Sex, F/M, Fluff, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 12:06:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9439445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caprelloidea/pseuds/caprelloidea
Summary: In the aftermath of everything they’ve been through, Killian falls into a melancholy.  Emma helps him find his way back.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Something to get the writing juices flowing again. Inspired by [this beautiful piece](http://j-cody.tumblr.com/post/155625955171/bare-a-captain-swan-coffeecoffee-painting) by [j-cody](http://j-cody.tumblr.com).

It's a Saturday – like any other, really – when Emma wakes alone in their bed. It's not altogether unusual, given that Killian typically wakes with the dawn. _More_ usual as of late though, she muses, rolling over to his side of the bed. It's not quite that he's withdrawing, still generous with his time and his affection. If anything, _so_ generous with his affection that it makes her worry. Not that he'll leave – she's so far past that at this point, that she ever doubted him becomes the sort of memory she can hardly reconcile with herself. But simply that he's afraid.

"Of _what_ , though," Emma murmurs aloud. Of course, she has a feeling. On some nights – the cold ones, especially, when she pulls Killian nearly half on top of her just to stay warm – she has the same fear. One born of the sight of his life fading away, of his soul wrapped in unfamiliar clothes and unforgiving chains, countless moments where she'd wondered if she would ever see him again. It can wear on her.

It's wearing on her _now_ , as a matter of fact, since she's started thinking about it. Rolling once more – now tangled impossibly in the sheets, one of her socks, _Goddamit_ , wriggling its way off her foot and down into oblivion – she closes her eyes and listens. That's one of the nice things about living in an old house, Emma's decided, the creaky noises that distract her when she starts thinking too hard. The windows are cracked open, and the ceiling fan is ticking away. There are distant sounds of traffic and waves, closer sounds of wooden beams settling down onto slate. Henry says it sounds like the whole place is about to snap in half sometimes. Emma wonders whether his flair for the dramatic is learned or hereditary. Maybe both.

Maybe she's fooling herself, she thinks, eyes squeezing shut until patterns of color burst into view. Her mind flits easily back to Killian, the way she can feel a dull and listless thud in her chest, a twinge in her left wrist, a sort of fuzz in the selfsame hand. She can practically _feel_ him thinking somewhere downstairs.

Emma sighs and opens her eyes. Not two weeks ago, their positions were reversed. Sometimes, on the days Henry throws his stuff into a giant bag, giving both her and Killian a quick hug before he and his disproportionately long legs run off to Regina's, the house is a little too quiet. She remembers just kind of…sitting on the couch, staring at the fireplace. She'd dug her toes down into the rug, tried fiddling with her phone, tried that thing where she sits with her feet over the back of the furniture, head nearly lolling off the edge. Admired the tray ceiling, wondered when she was ever gonna muster up the energy to bring in the ladder so she could pull those two Nerf darts off the crown molding. More than anything, she remembers Killian peering down at her with a collision of amusement and compassion and fondness. He had taken her hand, and brought her to the pond by the woods, where the mirror image of the sky, the breeze, the critters, the faint rustle of leaves, the whining sound tree branches make when they rub together in the wind – where it had all made a sort of symphony, helping her forget.

That, and he'd taken her back home and fucked her on the couch where he'd found her, laughing when he'd turned her on her back and she'd complained about those _stupid_ Nerf darts on the ceiling. To which he'd answered, half-panting as he'd moved inside her,

"You should not have challenged me to a duel then, Swan, if you didn't want there to be casualties."

Even now, Emma laughs, giving her just enough energy to roll out of bed and put on something resembling respectable, Saturday morning clothes. She's made a mess of the covers, something she's sure he'll feign some charming exasperation over tonight.

It occurs to her as she tries to find her _other fucking sock_ that, well, why the hell can't she do the same for him? His moods tend to be quieter, and a bit lonelier than hers. Probably a side effect of living for hundreds of years. But she can't imagine he'd say no to a day on the beach, for instance. She smiles, even as she gives up, and finds another sock of a vaguely similar color, and more or less hops down the stairs.

Henry greets her when she walks into the kitchen and starts fumbling around with the coffee pot. "Hey, good morning, I'm a teenager and I sleep less than you."

Emma purses her lips, rolls her eyes, "Whatever, I was up later than you were."

"I _saw_ you fall asleep on the couch, Mom, and watched Killian practically carry you up the stairs."

She laughs. "Can't you ignore your mom like every other kid your age?"

Henry only smiles. He's in good humor, she can tell, and she marvels at the way he can take everything in stride. She and Killian have talked about it more than once, the way he sort of picks himself up by his bootstraps and dusts himself off.

"I'll pardon the mixed metaphors, darling," Killian had said, "since it's all in admiration of your boy."

Emma smiles at the thought, sitting down to drink her coffee, watching Henry as he searches half-heartedly through the kitchen cabinets. When she's finished drinking her second cup, though the idea is only half-formed in her mind, she meanders over to the closet, grabbing the biggest bag she can find and an armful of towels. She drags it all back into the kitchen, where Henry looks from her to her bag and back again.

"What's that for?" he says.

She shrugs. "I was kinda thinking I might take Killian to the beach."

Henry gives her a _look_. "Uh, pretty sure that was _my_ idea."

"Was _not_. I just thought of it this morning."

Henry rolls her eyes and pulls out his phone, scrolling a bit before he reads aloud, "Hey Mom, Killian seems kinda down, maybe you should take him swimming or something, you know how he likes to whine about how gross the water is."

"Oh, right."

Emma surveys the impressive pile of stuff she's managed to accrue on the counter. She looks curiously from the pile to her bag, which is fraying at the corners, the zipper looking warped and tired. She considers asking Henry if she can borrow his duffel. Then again, given what they may or may not _do_ on top of some of these things, she thinks twice, and begins stuffing it the bag she has. She takes a lazy inventory while she goes, aware that – should she _actually_ be successful in weaseling him out of the house – Killian will probably ask for it.

"Did you bring snacks?"

Emma huffs, in part because of the sheer amount of muscle power it's taking to convince all of the towels and sunscreen to just get inside the Goddamn bag already.

"Kid," she says, fondly indignant, giving him something of an arch look. Though, her expression fades when she sees what he's _eating_.

"Um, okay," she says, spying the _mixing bowl_ he's filled with at least two kinds of cereal, and three kinds of crackers, judging by the boxes on the counter. "Do we even have any _food_ left?"

"What?" Henry says, muffled through a mouthful of… _whatever_. "Mom says I'm growing."

"Did she tell you to eat us out of the house?"

The kid smiles, _just_ the way he's been doing since after Killian moved in. It's a little crooked, with just enough eyebrow to charm her into faltering.

"And anyways," he says, washing his bowl of junk down with a thick swallow of soda. "She invited us all over for dinner next week, so that ought to make up for it."

Emma can't help but laugh, quietly, just as she manages to pull the zipper shut. "It better, or I'm making you shop for groceries."

Henry just shrugs, in all his teenaged gusto, though he has the presence of mind to look a little sheepish, smiling through another mouthful before he pushes boxes of crackers and cookies her way.

"Seriously, though," he says, falling easily back into a sweet sort of charm. "What's a day at the beach without snacks?"

She laughs, and grabs a package of each. By the time they're actually _in_ the bag with the rest of their things, Emma's sure they've all crumbled to bits.

"So you'll be fine here alone, right?" she says.

"I'm going to Violet's house in an hour, Mom."

"Yeah, I know, it's just…" Emma gestures weakly.

"Besides," Henry says. "I think this is something you guys should talk about without me."

Emma just looks at him a moment, before reaching over and patting him on the back. "Sometimes I swear you're older than me."

"Next time somebody casts a curse, I just might be."

"I thought we agreed that we weren't gonna tell anymore curse jokes for like a least a year."

Henry laughs, and bounds off and up the stairs. Emma follows him, and turns into her and Killian's bedroom to grab a few more things here and there. Though she's uncertain that he'll even want to go anywhere, it gives her something to _do_ all the same, something to occupy her mind and her hands while she thinks about what to say.

Less than an hour later, she's leaning against the jamb of the screen door to the back porch. The wood is warped, a bit chipped, but the screen is clean and new, relatively free of bugs and grime, so she has an unobstructed view of the way he sits on the porch step. His chin rests in his hand, elbow on his knee while he gazes out at the back yard. It's a bit surreal, watching him watch the sky, nothing but a plain shirt stretched over his back, bones and sinew twisting beneath the fabric when he sighs.

That's something he's done a lot more of the past few days. Sighing.

Staring. That's another.

Emma knows that he's losing himself. Only in stages. She knows because she's lost herself before, found again when a pirate gentleman took her for a walk.

Killian doesn't appear to notice when she opens the door, letting it swing softly shut behind her. The floorboards creak beneath her feet, and a stray breeze picks up a loose bit of hair, tossing it over her shoulder. He leans back, up and into the sunshine, falling softly as it does after a night of warm, summer rain. There are bushes that probably need trimming, a fencepost that leans a bit too far to the right, a trellis that's cracked nearly halfway through. Things that would usually bother him, all awash in the light, and there he sits, ignoring it all while he sits uncharacteristically still. She's always liked the slow turn of winter to spring, the sunlight from silver to gold. And never more so than when it's catching in his hair. The breeze picks up, and a wisp of a cloud unfurls out over the sun.

The shadows – falling just as neatly under the curls of hair at the nape of his neck, under the shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows – seem to break the spell. He turns, and Emma watches his lips curl up in profile.

"Come to take me away, have you?"

She smiles, and sits beside him, catching at his ankle with her foot. He answers her smile in turn, though he gazes absently over her shoulder a moment before resting his hand on her knee.

"You heard all that, huh?" Emma says, reaching up to twist her fingers through the hair behind his ear.

"Henry told me this morning, before you awoke."

"I swear that kid's like prescient or something."

"Aye," he answers, expression fond as he reaches down to fiddle absently with the hem of her shirt. "He's certainly far more clever than I."

Emma smiles weakly. "So we're in the self-deprecating compliments part of the mood, I'm guessing."

Killian's eyes slip down her face and over her shoulders, until he's watching his fingers twist at her shirt like they don't belong to him.

"I'm sorry," he says, quietly. "I just…it will pass."

Emma leans back, tugs a little harder at his hair. "It's not your _fault_. I'm just saying that – that…I'm _really_ bad at this."

Killian smiles, much to her surprise. "You're far better than you think, Swan."

_Sure_ , she thinks. But she doesn't say it out loud.

"Well, okay," she says instead. "Let's see, whenever I'm feeling this way, you usually give me a beautiful speech , and like a hug or something, then a walk or dinner out or movie night with Henry."

Fingers slipping underneath her shirt, just barely skimming her side, he hums and tilts his head, looking up at her from underneath his lashes. "Well, what would _you_ do?"

Though Emma's familiar with the earnest expressions he gives her, it still somehow manages to take her by surprise when he's like this, listening eagerly, waiting for her opinion.

"Um, okay…" she starts, biting her lip before she answers, "Ask you if you feel like being left alone or not first?"

He shakes his head. "Not this time."

"Alright. Well, uh, then I'd ask if you feel like staying in or going out."

He pauses to look around. The brilliant white clouds have dissipated, once more bathing him in sunlight. His pupils shrink to nothing, a nearly unbearable shade of blue looking back at her.

"Out," Killian answers. "It would be a shame to let a day like this go by unappreciated."

"So…then I'd probably try to bribe you with, like, a _lot_ of kissing to tell me what _you_ want to do instead of letting me just drag you somewhere."

Killian smiles, as she knew he would. He looks a bit lighter with each question, the arch in his back straightening so that he's looking down at her.

"Darling, you know I'm content to let you lead." He pauses, and leans in. "Although I would certainly not protest a little bribery here and there."

Emma presses her hand against his chest. He frowns, the theatric expression on his face making her laugh.

"This is _all_ hypothetical, Jones. So then let's say, hypothetically, that I charm what you want out of you. Then what?"

Reluctance flashes in his eyes, at which point Emma _knows_ that he has something in mind. And she can tell he knows that she knows, a silent conversation passing between them. But he's clearly worn, a sort of default dejectedness in the way he clutches at her side, the way his head hangs a little lower than usual. He concedes with a twist of his brow.

"May I then _hypothetically_ request that you take me on an adventure?" he says.

"An adventure?"

He nods, a little eager, a little boyish, and she wonders briefly just how many consecutive times she can fall in love with him.

"Aye, an adventure. Somewhere I've never been. It was something Liam and I would do after our mother…and before our father…"

Killian pauses, and collects himself. She remembers the stories, often told late at night when Henry is pretending to be in bed and they've broken into the wine. Some of them silly, all of them underscored with the same sort of hurt she sees in him now.

So _bad at this_ , she thinks.

"Okay," she says, more for herself than for him. "An adventure…"

Emma thinks a moment, back to when _she_ felt the same sort of urge to just run off for a day or two, before magic and Henry and Storybrooke. They're too far from Portland, she thinks, and too from the parks in Apalachee Bay.

Then she thinks of Boston, recalls a hidden stretch of beach, and well she's _already_ got all the stuff they need –

"There's this beach," she says. "It's a hike to get there. I used to go there when I lived in Boston."

Killian quirks a brow, looking hesitant. "In the city, is it?"

"Nope," she answers. "It's in the middle of fucking nowhere."

He brightens. "Aye?"

"Yep. It's a couple hours away, but I already packed a bag for the beach."

"And Henry?"

"Hanging out with Violet."

Killian bites his lip, then, and considers her. Emma knows what it feels like, the longing to curl up in on yourself. If he does, she'll be here for that too, but she can see his mind working. There's a faraway expression on his face, the one he wears when he thinks of younger days. It's several long, quiet moments before he looks back down at her, and smiles.

"When do we leave?"

She smiles back.

* * *

He's quiet again when they're on the road. It's not that it's _uncharacteristic_ for him to be quiet. They'll often walk down to the harbor on chilly afternoons, both wrapped up tight in their leather jackets, his legs practically in her lap while they crowd one another on the sea wall. The very same where he'd told her –

"I thought it might calm you," she says.

Killian turns to look at her, his hook nudging against her leg until she wraps her fingers around the base, her other hand resting on top of the wheel.

"The drive?" he says.

"No, I mean…" She wishes she could turn and look at him, could press what she's thinking into his lips with hers. That she could tug his shirt out from beneath his jeans, and tell him what she means with the way that her nails scratch at the base of his spine.

"That's what you told me," she says, in lieu of pulling over and getting a ticket for public indecency, "when you showed me the horizon way back when."

Killian hums, low and deep and long, and there's just something about it that makes her feel sleepy. It reminds her of when words finally begin to fail him, and he too speaks with his fingers drawing over her skin. And with his tongue, wordless sounds he draws just beneath her ear. It's…contentment? Maybe? That she can't tell what he's thinking twists something down deep in her belly, where it sparks the sort of indignation she feels whenever she thinks on the things he's told her. Late, _late_ in the evening, when the darkness – _actual_ darkness – overwhelms him, and he quietly asks her to turn on the lamp at their bedside. When he tells her the story of the boy who preceded the man.

"What are you thinking about, Emma?" he says.

"Funny, I was just about to ask you the same thing."

He frowns. She can _hear_ it, the way that his jaw grinds back and forth, cracking over the ever so slightly uneven set of his teeth. His hook presses harder into her leg. She longs to tug at it until he tells her – tells her _whatever_ it is that has him out of sorts. She suspects, but she doesn't want to Archie him. _Archie_ can Archie him when he's done…Archie-ing her.

"What are you thinking?" he repeats, gently.

"That you'd cringe if I told you the word I just made up in my head."

"Swan."

She sighs. "I guess…just that, it's okay, you know. It's okay to ask me for help. Or somebody else, for that matter."

He answers, not unkindly, "I know that, love."

"Okay, just…making sure."

Killian hums. Emma can see him watching her out of the corner of her eye.

Then, "Why don't you tell me something?"

She glances at him. "Like what?"

"Anything. A story, perhaps. From before I knew you."

_A story_ , she muses. She's sure a lot of things she could tell him would only bum him out, which is something he _really_ doesn't need. But then again, her bail bonds days are sure to have a few gems here and there. She wracks her brain before settling on one in particular.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I accidentally cuffed the mayor's son in Boston?"

He snorts, incredulous. "You certainly _haven't_."

Emma smiles, and begins to talk. He seems comforted by the sound of her voice, leaning back to let the wind flutter in the open window. It's warm, and bright, and familiar, driving these long distances with him. When she finishes that tale, she tells another, the another, glad for once to have a long way to go.

* * *

When they arrive, it's just as Emma remembers. An ugly old pier jutting out into a slate gray bay, where the winds are curtailed off to the south, and the air smells of tepid seawater. There's a sort of grass – dead and gray and brown – washing up in rows on the rocky sand. They smell of –

"Death," Killian says, perched on a rock, looking down at where the water washes up onto the sand. He wrinkles his nose, and shifts from one foot to another, pulls the strap of the bag she'd bagged tighter over his shoulder. "What manner of foul magic turned these waters to sludge?"

Emma rolls her eyes – though she has to say she agrees – and takes hold of his hook, tugging until he follows close behind her.

"Is this the beach?" he says, and she can tell he's trying to mask his disdain. It's the very same tone he wears when he remarks dryly on the size of the fish they load into the cannery, slowing to hardly a meander on their afternoon walks –

" _They're quite…miniscule, aren't they Swan?"_

" _The fish? They look normal to me."_

" _That's…curious."_

– with that _look_ on his face.

"This is _a_ beach," Emma answers. "But it sucks, so _no_."

Killian's face twists immediately into disgust, and she laughs, tugging harder, until they're walking into mess of trees curling up and around the bay.

"Aye," he says. "It does, indeed."

The trees, sparse and suffering from some sort of rot, begin to thicken the further they walk, and the muddy patches in the path that he's been physically _lifting_ her over –

"You could just lay your jacket down on them," she gripes.

"Well, I suppose – "

"Jesus, _no_."

– dry out, replaced with a bright crush of green, fragrant needles. The winds pick up, and the smell off the bay turns sweet and sharp. Killian's hook warms beneath her fingertips, and his steps lighten, falling in time with her own. Cleaner and crisper than the waters of Storybrooke, she remembers the warm, lonely nights she'd spent spilling her sorrows to the white sands in the years she lived in Boston, when she had both the time and the inkling to get away from the city. Some memories, she's noticed, tend to brighten with time. But here – the sand and the water and the trees, all oddly diaphanous in the angular light – time hasn't lied to her. It's all just as beautiful as she remembers.

"This is beautiful, Swan," Killian says, stopping where the trees begin to thin, looking down at the sand as it swells out from beneath the ebbing tide.

Emma watches him watch the water for a moment, reaching up to fiddle with his brace. "Does this count as an adventure?"

He turns, then, and smiles faintly down at her, eyes flitting over her hair as it drifts in the breeze. "With you? It always does."

No matter how long they live, Emma's sure she'll never grow used to those sorts of declarations – never mind the speeches he tends to give afterwards. Tired as he is, he seems content to let these words alone dissipate for a moment before urging her to lead them onward. Killian has always been endlessly curious. In gentle moments, he tends to ask questions. A _lot_ of questions. She's grown used to explaining things, some things that she fumbles her way through. Like electric currents and rocket launches. But again, as on the ride down, he's quiet. When she looks back at him, he tilts his head and quirks his brow, lips pulling up.

"Does that mean this is working?" she says.

"Pardon?"

"You're kinda smiling but kinda not?" Emma shrugs, peering at him over her shoulder as the land begins to slope back down towards the sea. "Are you happy?"

He pauses, in word and step, considering her a moment before he answers, truthfully, "Aye. You're a marvel, Swan. It takes a great feat of heartache to make me anything but."

"You're so charming, it's ridiculous."

For the first time in days, mischief alights in his eyes.

"I aim only to please, milady," he says.

She rolls her eyes fondly, reaches again for his hook as she leads him down the path. The harsh landscape of rock and outcroppings lean down into a little marsh, reeds jutting almost angrily up into the sky around a little pond. Another turn and the pine becomes oak, then shrubs, the sort that sit well in the sand. Emma goes faster as the sound of the water grows louder. She's sure Killian is more than ready to sit that Goddamn bag down on ground, which is the very first thing he does when the vegetation suddenly drops away, leaving behind a canvas of blue and white and gold. She expects him to take in the scene, given how he's been brooding all day. But he seems determined to let it all go, and he turns to her, tugging at the straps on his brace.

"Help me out of these bloody clothes, would you Swan?"

Emma answers, practically bounding over to him. "Hell _yeah_."

As she approaches, there's a spark of lust in his eyes, but it's tempered by affection. Though, even as she watches, he seems to grow taller, the salt in the breeze curling around his hair like it's greeting an old friend. Her eyes roam his face while she pulls at the straps, letting the leather breathe before pulling it off his wrist and throwing it over her shoulder with abandon. Killian smiles at that, familiar crinkles pulling at the corners of his eyes. Her fingers crawl up his chest, pushing his jacket off his shoulders. It falls into the sand with a satisfying sound. She undoes the buttons on both his vest and his shirt, pushing those off too, until he's adorned from the waist up with nothing but the charms on the silver chain around his neck, and the tattoos on his arms and on his sides. She tugs on his belt, and his teeth peek out from between his lips.

"Awfully forward of you, darling," he teases.

Emma smiles. "I can stop."

"I'd rather – "

_Perish_ , is what he usually says. But he stops short. That same _fucking_ melancholy that he's carried for the past several days falls straight into sorrow, or something like it, and it pisses her off on his behalf. Emma knows that hardships have scars, ones that never really seem to fade. They burn when you least expect it. She's lost more than one would-be friend to the long bouts of solitude she'd once taken when the simple act of remembering became too difficult. When _staying alive_ , in and of itself, was all she could do. The expression on his face reminds her of that, and she wants to – to _hug_ it out of him or something.

"Everything alright?" Killian asks, quietly.

"Yeah, why?"

"You have a particularly intense expression on your face right now, love. Absent any context, I'd expect you were about to slay another dragon."

Despite his humor, he looks stricken, but it fades quickly the closer she gets. Emma thinks to call him out on it, but there's nothing disingenuous about the way he reaches for her, and certainly not about the flush that crawls down his chest. She expects innuendo, but the suggestive way he'd watched her tug at his belt melts into contentment to be taken care of. He watches her as she pulls it out of his jeans, then reaches down to undo the fastenings.

"I brought swimsuits," she says, "in case you wanted them."

Killian shakes his head, and leans back to kick off his shoes. "It will never cease to astound me that you lot swim in _clothes_."

"Not everybody on _Earth_ wants to see your naked ass while you frolic around in the waves."

"I'd beg to differ, darling."

Again with the false bravado, she thinks, the touch of humor getting a smile out of him while she turns to shed her own clothes, watching the exasperation wash over him as she simply tosses them in a pile on the ground. He pauses to pick them up, folding them half-heartedly before setting them on the ground. When they're both naked, though his eyes roam over her breasts and down her legs, they settle on her face, pausing at her ears, and then following the hair she'd tied up before they left. He reaches back and tugs as gently as he can. At the mere touch of the air, the lack of binding, it begins to curl wildly, fluttering around her face as he urges her back towards the water.

"Does this still feel like an adventure?" Emma asks, when the waves tease at her belly before washing nearly over her shoulders. He holds onto her, tightly. The same stricken expression flits over his face, and this time, he allows it to linger, looking at her so hard she feels her cheeks starting to itch.

"Yes," is all he says, quiet and small.

She can't think of anything to say, so she wordlessly offers a distraction instead, pulling him deeper into the water, until the sandy bottom slips away, and they're swimming in open water. It seems like ages of drifting and floating, occasionally swimming back up to the sand bar. Emma contents herself with watching him from time to time. Killian seems to have boundless energy, gliding easily through the water for what seems like hours. But then, in time, he coaxes _her_ back into the water, holding her and just…floating.

When the sun begins to fall a bit lower in the sky, the low-angled light and the incoming tide just chilly enough to be uncomfortable, Emma is the first out of the water. She pulls a great, fluffy towel out of the bag. Killian is slower to follow, and she has the unique opportunity to watch the burgeoning sunset paint him against the sky. The water has calmed since they first arrived, swirling around his calves and playing at his knees. He stands perfectly still, and for a moment in time, it looks as though he was born here – or built here, rather, out of solid, glittering stone, pushing the waves out and then calling them back in.

"You're beautiful," she says, when he comes to her. "Have I ever told you that?"

He nods, earnestly. "You have."

Emma pauses, and throws the towel to the ground, stepping into his arms. Pressed to him like this, his chest against hers, bodies melding down to their knees, she can feel her blood beginning to stir, heating low in her belly. She can see it in his eyes, too, a tempered desire.

"Can I make love to you now?" she says.

He answers her gruffly, "Anything you want."

Emma has to convince herself to move away from him, wrapped up as she is, shielded from the breeze that's blowing in off the bay. Before she does, she stands on the tips of her toes, and kisses the corner of his mouth. She lingers to watch his eyes shut, his lashes casting long shadows over his cheeks. She watches him intently, waiting, _hoping_ the melancholy will fade. When he opens his eyes, he smiles, softly, and allows her to lead him to the pipe that passes for a shower, likely an offshoot of the plumbing for the beach about a half mile south. Emma imagines this must have once been something of a destination, before the forest was allowed to grow wild, popularity giving way to places that don't require an arbitrary hike. All the same, it makes it so she can stand naked beneath an open stream of water with Killian, the fading sunshine twinkling in the water as it washes the salt from his body. She leaves their hair be, instead touching him all over. He does so in return, until she can feel his arousal against his stomach, her own pooling between her legs.

The shriek of the pipe when she turns the water off fades quickly in the open air, leaving behind the heavy sound of their breathing. He merely watches her for a moment while she reaches back into the bag, pulling out towel after fluffy towel and laying them on the sand. When he leans down to help, she can see the amusement flashing in his eyes, mixing handsomely with his desire.

"I'm not certain you brought enough towels, Swan," he says.

"Exactly how much sand were _you_ planning on getting in your ass?"

Killian laughs. He seems to startle himself, rocking back on his heels. "Well, then, by all means."

He reaches out to help her, laying them down until there's practically a force field between them and the actual beach. And it's a little ridiculous, honestly, trying to find which side of the towel should go _up_ when they're both naked and aroused. At the very least, it gets him smiling again, particularly when she gives up on one of the smaller towels, balling it up and throwing it at his head. After which a flick of his wrist sets it to rights, and she urges him to lie down on his back.

The same expression he had in the water – looking as though she might disappear at any moment – creeps back into his face. Though it disappears when she settles over him, leaning down until her hands are flat, on either side of his chest. Her hair falls over her shoulder, curling tighter still as it dries. Killian reaches up to push it out of her face, but it comes tumbling back down, nearly bronze in the dying of the light.

"It's futile, darling," he says. "Your hair has a mind of its own."

"Yeah, and you love it."

He hums, wrapping the strands around his fingers. Emma lets her hips fall until she's straddling his hips, and though he begins to speak, the words catch on his tongue when she presses harder, and his cock slides between her thighs. Though she means to stay still, to allow the moment to stretch, she can't help the restless movement, the gentle back and forth. Especially when she can see the tension in his body let go, coiling again in unmitigated desire. Higher and higher she goes, growing wetter, until she can't hardly stand herself, and she angles down, the tip of him catching at her entrance.

_You're beautiful_ , she thinks, for the second time that day. The light, now a thick shade of amber, draws dark shadows over his chest and along his face. His head falls back into the towels, mouth falling open, eyes fluttering shut. When he's settled deep inside, his breath harsh and warm over her chest, he looks back up at her, drawing nonsensical patterns over her cheek.

"What are you thinking now?" he says, softly. She gasps when he shifts, digging his heels down into the towels, where they sink into the sand with a muted hiss.

"That we're idiots for fucking in the sand."

Killian laughs, softly. "You stay up there, darling. Only your knees are in danger."

Emma leans forward, until she's holding herself up with her hands on his chest. The motion nearly separates them, but he thrusts up, until they're pressed tight once more. He makes no move to repeat it, though, content to be still.

"What about you?" she says.

"Nothing I can name."

She huffs, and leans back. Then forth. Back and forth. Just enough to set the warmth in her belly flickering outward, towards her hands and feet, further and further the longer she goes.

"What does that mean?" she says, very nearly panting. She struggles to go slowly, can tell that's what he needs, the sort of tender love he's made to her when she feels the same way. Killian pulls her closer, angling higher still. Emma cries out softly, elbows buckling.

"That I _love_ you."

His voice is harsh against her ear, pitched low in the relative darkness. _God, you're fucking good at this_ , she thinks. At romance, at fucking, at _everything._ But she doesn't tell him out loud, not how she usually does. Instead, she breathes against the side of his face, allows the pleasure to rise and crest and fall, meeting the thrust of his hips as best she can until he comes. Emma leans back when he does, watching him tense up, then relax. It's certainly not a cure for sadness, but it's balm enough for him to lay comfortably underneath her, looking up at her with an expression that she hopes she mirrors.

"I love you too," Emma says. "In case that wasn't clear."

He answers, not looking near as lost, "Aye, Swan. It was."

* * *

Later that evening, Emma lays half on her side, half on top of Killian, a towel wadded up under his head. Tufts of his hair dry in a tangle across his forehead. The stubborn eyeliner that seems to cling to him for days at a time has washed into the water, leaving him looking impossibly young. Particularly when he smiles, softly, his front teeth flashing from between his lips. Rivulets of water still roll down his skin, the moisture in the air _not_ so very conducive to the quick dry she'd promised earlier. Nonetheless, the burgeoning starlight catches on his skin, and in his eyes. And by the way he's tangled his fingers in her hair, tracing the droplets that fall down between her breasts, Killian doesn't seem keen to complain either.

He does, however, seem keen to say _something_ , breathing in and opening his mouth, a sharp rise and fall of his chest that always ends in nothing but his warm breath washing over her face. In the silence, he wiggles closer, and tugs on her hair, somehow managing to look down at her from halfway underneath her.

"What is it?" she says.

Killian sighs, fingers still tangling restlessly through her hair.

"I just," he starts, pausing to lick the salt away from his lips, "I don't want you to think that I'm in any way discontented with what I have."

Emma leans up and over him, then, his hand falling from her hair down to the small of her back. She thinks she should probably be delicate with him, but she's honestly not even sure how to do it, not the way he does. So she lays her hand on his belly and says –

"It's okay to feel shitty sometimes, even if it's for no apparent reason. We can just come back here and swim and have sex – and whatever else you want to do – whenever you feel this way."

He smiles, then, though it's watery and tentative, and finally, whatever melancholy was twisting around inside of him seems to break free. Killian shakes his head, and his breathing quickens, voice thickening in his throat when he says –

"I've endured my fair share of tortures, love. Much has been taken from me. But little compares to the thought of having to…"

He reaches down, then, and grasps her fingers so tight, she has to make a noise of protest for him to loosen his grip. He apologizes quickly, of course, but he doesn't let go, only wiggles closer still, until his toes nudge against hers.

"Of having to…" he repeats, so very quiet she has to lean forward, look down to read the words off his lips, "…let you go. I've grown awfully tired of being separated from you, Swan, and now that we've some measure of peace, I've had a great deal of time to imagine what the next time might look like. If it might be the last."

Emma hums. "Well that's grim."

He laughs, rather involuntarily, it seems. "But one of many reasons to love you, darling, is that you don't waste any time on pretense."

"Good to know."

He seems to have more to say, a telltale hitch in his breath, but he allows the moment to settle. The rising tide rushes down near their feet, stray droplets of water here and there tickling her toes. With a gentle pressure between her shoulder blades, Killian urges her to come back down to him.

"There are moments when I can hardly believe my good fortune. I have a – a family." He trips over the word _family_ , at which Emma leans further still, until her chest is pressed against his, and she can feel every breath that he takes. The hair on his belly is rough against her skin, and the salt they didn't quite manage to wash away has dried to a faint grit on his fingertips. Even so, it's dried in his eyelashes as well, and there's a boyish whimsy about him that makes her smile.

"I have _you_ ," he says, with more confidence. This too makes her smile, and he does so in return, the skin by his eyes crinkling, teeth glimmering in the moonlight.

"You do," she answers.

Emma shifts restlessly, until Killian is pressed on his back, and she can watch him with her feet tucked between his, and with her chin on her hands, rising and falling with every breath that he takes.

Then, "There are others when I can't believe…"

Killian pauses to swallow, and this too she can feel, a jump in the muscles on his stomach.

"Can't believe what?" Emma says.

He sighs. "How much I've lost."

"Oh, Killian."

"Don't mistake me, Swan," he says, quickly, reaching up to caress her side – the warmth of his fingertips and the chill of the metal alike. "I have many regrets. None of them have anything to do with you. I just – "

"I know, you just – "

" – feel the darkness in my heart, threatening to come back to haunt us."

Emma doesn't quite know what to say. Then again, by the look on his face, she suspects he doesn't need to hear anything from her, just needs to say it, so it's all out there in the open. She knows that he's afraid of losing her. If he hadn't told her – which he did, often with his head lying on her chest, too vulnerable to look at her – then it would be obvious by the way he holds her now.

"If I were my mother, this is probably where I'd make a speech about hope."

Killian smiles, still somewhere far away. "Aye."

"Same with my dad."

He nods, eyes drifting slowly back to her face.

"And Henry too…"

With a twitch of his fingers, and a quirk of his brow, he comes back to himself. "It's like I said this morning, Swan. What would _you_ do?"

Emma smiles, and leans down, taking his face between her hands, pressing hard enough that his cheeks press up towards his nose. And then, with the tips of her fingers sliding up towards his hair, she kisses him, long and soft and deep.

"I love you," she says.

"And I you," he answers, simply.

"And I'm fucking _freezing_."

Killian laughs, loud and rich, a husk in his voice from the salt and moisture in the air.

"Shall we head home, then, my love? I'm certain I can keep you much warmer there."

"Oh yeah? How're you gonna do that?"

The expression on his face is downright lascivious, his pupils contracting in the darkness. Even so, she's not _all_ that surprised when he says, as though he were describing the taste of her on his tongue –

"I do believe you owe me a rematch with the foam dart guns."

Emma smiles, and watches the last of his uncertainty melt away. She's sure it will be back. Not just for him, but for her too. But there always beaches and ponds, fucking on the couch and in the sand, eating a _really_ ridiculous amount of ice cream…and hope. That too. So – pushing up on her elbows so she can stare down directly into his eyes, hair dragging along his chest – she answers him,

"You're on."


End file.
